It's only March and I've brewed four beers with two more are on the way.
A comm0n theme among my beers is their namesakes. I am on a quest to be a real law school dork and name a beer after everyone in my study group . I'm officially down to my last person, Dave Bloom. The Bloomenator? Dave's -oh shit i spilled my coffee-ale? Bloom's bubble bursting bock? We'll find an appropriate one soon enough.
As for everyone else, we started with the Ingvoldstout for the lovely Lauren. Then we moved on to Little C's Lavender for none other then Little C. Andrew was upset at being left out so I hurriedly honored him with St. Andrew's Tripel. I still think he feels he gets no respect. Maybe he's right.
Either way, it was time to honor the rockin' Roshelli. This is a woman who has done it all, UPenn, airforce, nurse, federal clerk... but she lacked that all important honorary beer. It was time to step up to the plate. I really don't remember how it came about but all of a sudden we were discussing whether a certain phrase was copyrighted, or trademarked or whatever was the right intellectual property issue. Four law students sitting at a bar having no idea what how to make sure we could use the term "Naughty Nurse." Kristin's biggest concern-- making sure the 'a' in Naughty connected to the 'a' in Ale. The genesis of Kristin's namesake was born.
Wait, I'm naming a beer after this?
But what was Naughty Nurse Ale to be? She loved Sam Adams Cherry Wheat and Ommegang's 3 Philosopher's. I thought about the amber malt I had lying around and then I thought about the two beers she liked. Then I thought about the cherry tree in my back yard. Ergo... Naughty Nurse Cherry Amber was born. Unfortunately, The Naughty Nurse will have to wait until the right season. We don't want to pop the cherry too soon...
Ingvoldstout, Naughty Nurse and Little C
That brings us to the next big beer, the Blonde Hopshell Belgian Imperial IPA. Big name, big beer. I want to raise the bar in homebrewing by pushing the alcohol content without sacrificing flavor. I dislike the really strong beers that leave a somewhat winy alcohol aftertaste. Beer is supposed to go down easy and I want to brew a big beer that slides right down. The idea is to have a Belgian Blonde, like Duvel, infused with with American hops and candy sugar. I'm using yeast called Ardennes, so you know it's going to be intense! Just like Germans tried to bulge through the American line, this will bust through your notion of beer... only I won't fail!
Soon We will be standing in front La Brassiere de Loup, or De wolfbrouwerij.
The next post will have tasting notes on St. Andrew's Tripel and Little C's Lavender so stay tuned! Plus I will recap my trip to Oregon... hopefully the Blond Hopshell will have some Cascade hops straight from the Cascade mountains! Soon this picture of me in Brugge will, like my beer, be juxtaposed with the American West Coast.
Cheers
